New Behavioral Health Resources Launched

The University of Minnesota’s TeleOutreach Center + Service Hub has launched a series of free training modules for mental health workers, healthcare providers, and others caring for children and adolescents with mental, emotional, developmental, and behavioral health needs.

The on-demand modules, along with supplemental online resources, feature clinicians, researchers, and other University of Minnesota specialists offering evidence-based strategies for professionals working with families as they encounter a range of diagnoses and conditions. The series was created to support professionals who work with military-connected and rural families as part of an ongoing project with The Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP), a Center of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and several other academic institutions.

To learn more about the modules, click here . To register, click here .

“We’ve provided a number of live training sessions through our Project ECHO and other initiatives, but we were asked for more content and resources that providers could access asynchronously,” said Jessica Simacek, principal investigator and director of the TeleOutreach Center at the Institute on Community Integration. Simacek and Damien Fair , co-director of the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, co-lead the project. “These modules will be a great, complementary tool to expand access to specialty mental/emotional/developmental/behavioral health care for children in greater Minnesota and for our military-connected families in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest,” Simacek said.

Primary care providers, community health workers, case managers, and educators working with children are among those who will find the modules useful.

The modules, produced by the Institute’s Amanda Ryan, feature University of Minnesota clinicians, researchers, and faculty, who address best practices in autism assessments, helping families after an autism diagnosis, and supporting youth with challenging behaviors. Others provide overviews of ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and medical issues in child and adolescent behavioral health, which were priority topic areas identified by providers, educators, and lead agency case managers across the state.

“Timely support is important for families with a new diagnosis because it can help make them feel more empowered to make decisions and navigate next steps,” said Adele Dimian, associate director of the TeleOutreach Center and one of the expert presenters in the series.

In another module, Gail Bernstein , a child and adolescent psychiatrist and professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School who leads MIDB’s Child Anxiety Clinic, provides an overview of the different types of childhood anxiety disorders, rating scales for assessment, and evidence-based treatments.

“The module on anxiety will guide providers in differentiating between developmentally typical and clinical-level anxiety that gets in the way of age-appropriate activities,” Bernstein said.

Kyle Sterrett (pictured), assistant professor in the Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience and a faculty member in the University’s Department of Pediatrics, explores early intervention in autism in another module, focusing on providing different approaches to help more children.

“It’s important to question why we are doing what we are doing,” he said. “Can I modify my approach to better work with a child, and am I following the evidence and best practices? Asking these questions makes us better clinicians and is a key takeaway from this series.”

Amy Esler, a professor and psychologist who leads the Autism and Neurodevelopment Clinic at MIDB, leads the module on autism assessment.

“Knowing what someone's diagnosis is tells you very little about their needs. A comprehensive evaluation, when done well, should identify unique areas of strength and difficulty and give the patient and family a roadmap for where to start with interventions or support services,” she said. “I hope this series gives providers the motivation to pursue even more training. These diagnoses we talk about in the modules are complex, and we need more people who specialize in specific areas to meet the demand.”

Overall, the series is a powerful example of how the concept of telehealth is expanding to include not just direct patient care, but broad educational outreach initiatives, Esler said.

“We are just beginning to leverage the power of teleoutreach to increase capacity to serve children and families with behavioral and developmental needs. I can't wait to hear from providers how these modules worked for them and what we can do to build on and improve them.”